An excellent concise and accurate statement of the interactive dualism theory of mind

@Laird 

If there really is a proper, actual external reality... how do we explain qualia, given that we can never observe the thing-in-itself? Qualia are private, as it were, yet rely fully on interaction with the so-called external world. Actually... when it comes the shared physical medium, all we have are our private qualia.

There is a mystery of why things can interact at all ~ why can I touch, say, a table, and feel a certain sensation? Why do all of we humans generally share very similar, if not the same, range of archetypal sensory awareness to draw upon, that allow us humans to communicate, indirectly, that we are experiencing this thing or that thing ~ hot, redness, sweetness, pain, love, etc?

If the world is truly external, then why do we experience being so truly part of it, through the sheerness of continuous sensory awareness?

It is natural for us to say "I am in pain" ~ it is the external, physical body that is felt to be hurting, yet because matter and physics has no concept of pain, that pain must be entirely mental... or astral, or whatever. Unless what we think of as the "physical body" is simply the closest layer of the astral body to the physical, hence appearing to be identical for all intents and purposes.

If I touch a table, and feel a wooden feeling... is that not a direct sensing of qualia, a sensory interpretation of something? Thus, it is rather unclear that there is a distinction between Experiencer and what is within Experience, except that we decide what is so based on our immediate mental model of reality.

Sheldrake's Mind-as-Field idea may be the best bet, if we think of Fields as Simple in the sense that they don't have parts.

This at least can explain how filter/transmitter theories could possibly work, how memories aren't stored yet changes to the brain affect our access to them, how Psi can work across distances, how wounds in one life can be birthmarks in the next, etc.

We shouldn't necessarily think [Persons-as-Souls] are exactly like the fields of physics, though listening to the Sheldrake-Vernon dialogues it seems a lot of seemingly non-mental concepts actually have their origin as referring to mental characteristics...so I would say just as Paul Brunton once said we needed to mentalize space and spacialize mind, we also need to [bring] mentality back to our physics as well as try and figure out how a Person with non-physical aspects could stand in relation to the World...

As I like to often bring up, Attanasio wrote, "...And he sat amazed under the skywide realization that his immortal soul dwelled not inside him: He lived inside the cosmic immensity of his soul..."

Sheldrake's Mind-as-Field idea may be the best bet, if we think of Fields as Simple in the sense that they don't have parts.

Doesn't Faggin also hold similar beliefs, albeit Faggin's Mind-as-Field is quantum in nature?

This at least can explain how filter/transmitter theories could possibly work, how memories aren't stored yet changes to the brain affect our access to them, how Psi can work across distances, how wounds in one life can be birthmarks in the next, etc.

Makes complete sense to me. Mind is not "extended" in that it doesn't have physical or even astral properties, but is extended in the sense that it strongly resonates with the physical and astral forms that it is correlated with.

Psi has been demonstrated to have enough non-local effects ~ telepathy, remote viewing, deceased relative dreams, remote healing (prayer, etc), NDE OBErs being able to just teleport through thought and intention alone, etc. Therefore Mind-as-Field does make perfect sense here. Moreso than conventional filter/transmitter theory.

We shouldn't necessarily think [Persons-as-Souls] are exactly like the fields of physics, though listening to the Sheldrake-Vernon dialogues it seems a lot of seemingly non-mental concepts actually have their origin as referring to mental characteristics...so I would say just as Paul Brunton once said we needed to mentalize space and spacialize mind, we also need to [bring] mentality back to our physics as well as try and figure out how a Person with non-physical aspects could stand in relation to the World...

Indeed. What are the relevant dialogues, considering that they are 26 minutes each, and there are 93(!) of them?

As I like to often bring up, Attanasio wrote, "...And he sat amazed under the skywide realization that his immortal soul dwelled not inside him: He lived inside the cosmic immensity of his soul..."

That would also seem to be my experience... our soul being inside of our body would imply that the body is outside of the soul, or that we aren't our soul, or something. But our body being within our soul makes far more sense ~ the soul is the superset of our existence, after all.

Doesn't Faggin also hold similar beliefs, albeit Faggin's Mind-as-Field is quantum in nature?

Makes complete sense to me. Mind is not "extended" in that it doesn't have physical or even astral properties, but is extended in the sense that it strongly resonates with the physical and astral forms that it is correlated with.

Psi has been demonstrated to have enough non-local effects ~ telepathy, remote viewing, deceased relative dreams, remote healing (prayer, etc), NDE OBErs being able to just teleport through thought and intention alone, etc. Therefore Mind-as-Field does make perfect sense here. Moreso than conventional filter/transmitter theory.

Indeed. What are the relevant dialogues, considering that they are 26 minutes each, and there are 93(!) of them?

That would also seem to be my experience... our soul being inside of our body would imply that the body is outside of the soul, or that we aren't our soul, or something. But our body being within our soul makes far more sense ~ the soul is the superset of our existence, after all.

From what I've read of Irreducible it does seem Faggin has a similar ideal.

As for whether Mind is extended or not, it's not clear to me extension is by necessity a property that would make the Mental physical. As per the above videos about Russel's idea re: Universals, it's through Them that extension becomes known. Another way to look at it is that extension as we experience it needn't be a genuine property of fundamental physics, given the varied theories that suggest Space & Time are emergent from "deeper" Structure.

It also seems to me that Cartesian Dualism & Leibnizian Monadism both were born from challenges presented by the Mechanistic philosophy that held humans and animals were just machines in a machine-like universe. If those who wished to combat the encroachment of Materialism & the Disenchantment of Nature had been able to turn to physics' study of Fields, Relativity, and QM I suspect we'd have gotten better defenses for the place of the Soul in the Scientific Image.

I'm admittedly wary of trying to say extension is in some way illusory, as I don't see proponents really gaining much ground in STEM academia by arguing that all the Mind-Body interactions are resolved by the Body being a dream. That could be true, but it will seem like a cheap rhetorical trick to someone who is reasonably skeptical. Similarly when Dualists speak of the Mind being extensionless and the body being in extended space, a host of challenges spring up that are probably why Dualist metaphysics - in my experience at least - are [largely] regarded as a faith-based position by STEM academics.

Probably forgetting some, but I personally thought the following were relevant Dialogues:

The Speed of Gravity: Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogue 84

The Extension of Mind Through Space and the Sense of Being Stared At: Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogue 82

Forms and the Reformation of Science: Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogue 92

Purposes in Nature and Minds: Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogue 91

The Nature of Energy: Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogue 85